[Assignments] Recurring Assignments

[sbrown11]

I am a college professor, and I frequently give recurring assignments such as a weekly reflection paper wherein the students answer essentially the same questions each week about that week's materials.

It would be great to be able to create this one time with the due date, points value, etc., and then make it recurring for every week rather than having to either create new assignments and copy/paste the content (but still assign all the values), or use Commons, which I find to be very cumbersome, and which still requires me to change all of the due dates, etc.

[scottdennis]

Hello Shannon,

Thank you for taking the time to submit this feature idea.  There was another suggestion that, while not identical, I think gets at the same or very similar use cases:

However, I think your idea is sufficiently different in that, rather than having to go in and change the dates associated with multiple copies of an assignment, in the scenario you are describing you could, from one screen, tell Canvas to create an iteration of the assignment that would be do, say, every Wednesday at 3 PM up to a given end date.  Do you agree with this distinction?

Thanks

[sbrown11]

Scott:

I've read the copy the assignment feature request (and I will vote on it, because I think it's a great one too) but yes, the recurring assignments feature is slightly different.  As you said, I would like to be able to set up an assignment and then use a feature much like a recurring calendar appointment to say make it due every Wednesday at midnight.

From a design standpoint (I used to be in software before I moved into full time teaching), you might be able to use the "copy" feature you're showing on the other feature, and then have an extension of it that offers it up to be copied only or to recur.  If I just want it copied but want to assign different due dates, then I use copy.  If I want to make it recurring, then I choose that option.

[scottdennis]

Hello Again,

Thank you for coming back and commenting.

I just now added your idea to the queue that will open next.

Thanks,

Scott

[jordan]

This idea is now open for voting! 😉

[RobDitto]

 @sbrown11 ​, in this scenario would there be one overall grade for the recurring assignment, or individual grades for each occurrence?  The former case might be like the idea.

[sbrown11]

Individual grades for each occurrence.  I assign a weekly reflection in my college courses.  It is always due the same day/time each week, always worth the same # of points, and generally asks the same question(s) (but about that week's material).  But, I do grade them individually.

[RobDitto]

Thanks, Shannon, for the clarification.

[tluke]

This would be huge.  I teach high school and give weekly current event quizzes and weekly style quizzes.  It would be so beneficial to only have to type that in once and hit repeat.  There is an option to repeat on an event, but not an assignment. Thanks.

[ksauber]

This would be great at the K-12 level as well!  Often students have a recurring assignment.  It would be a great time saver for teachers if they could set up the assignment once and have it replicate each week/month.  Thank you for the great idea!

[kjacobson]

This would be amazing! So many assignments are done on a weekly basis and this would save teachers so much time and remind parents and students what is coming up